I enjoyed the
article about the making of this film far more than I did the movie itself. It
isn’t as bad as you might imagine, but it also isn’t good. It isn’t even as
shocking as it may have you believe, other than Paul Schrader's willingness to show a
semi-erect penis in the background. Lindsay Lohan shows nothing more than you
would expect to see in her Playboy shoot, appearing more desperate than sexy in
the role of Tara. Basically, this movie is
just a waste of time which has garnered a small amount of attention due to
casting choices, none of which are actually interesting in the actual film
itself. We were all interested in the fact that Lindsay Lohan was doing this
movie out of the same curiosity that drives motorists to leer at a bad car
crash, but in the end The Canyons
feels like sitting through two hours of traffic only to find a stalled car
blocking the path.

Author and
screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis (American
Psycho, The Rules of Attraction)
joined forces with Paul Schrader (writer of Taxi
Driver and director of American
Gigolo) to create this modern day attempt at campy cult classic. Nobody
wanted to finance the film, so they made it themselves by selling things and
scraping together just enough money to make this look a little better than
soft-core porn. Lohan’s horrid reputation made her suitable only co-starring
with a real-life porn star. James Deen is truly the star of the film, though
that is not necessarily a compliment as much as it is a fact. He plays
Christian, a manipulative movie producer who discovers his girlfriend once had
a relationship with the leading actor of his upcoming project.

Though this is a
Hollywood film about the casting and preparing
of a film, we only see discussions over dinner. There are no office meetings
and much of the storyline is completely unconcerned with the business aspects
of movie making. Instead we get a lot of bedroom scenes and pillow talk, none
of which is as titillating as Schrader would have you believe. It all becomes
tiresome and predictable after awhile, leading to unlikely situations filmed in
budget-saving ways.

The Blu-ray
release includes a group of ‘Creating The
Canyons’ featurettes, along with the theatrical trailer. The biggest
problem with the high definition release of this film is the fact that it only
enhances the flaws in the filmmaking. The unrated director’s cut also does
little to improve this dull disaster.